


third eye

by marketchippie



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Body Horror, F/M, Femdom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 15:40:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16558535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marketchippie/pseuds/marketchippie
Summary: “You surrender wonderfully,” she murmurs. “Perhaps that’s what it is that puts you ahead of me. I never had much gift for giving in.”





	third eye

**** _There are many ways to seal a pact._

She is astonishing in her swiftness, in her surety, as sure of her kiss as she is in the throw of her knives and just as sharply intent. The catch of her breath is sharp and light against his lips, avid and seeking, and all at once she rises to meet him, nails digging into the scruff of his neck as her body slides up the length of his. Her grip does not ease when she finds purchase, as she shifts her hips against his and presses him back against the desk until the wood digs in. His neck arches into the slight, sharp pain, and his hands are everywhere, everywhere, the slant of her cheek, the edge of her ear, the curve of her hip.

A splintered crash, something wet at his back: one of the wine glasses has tipped, paving the desk with glass, soaking up to the cuff of his sleeve with wine and ink. “Sorry,” he fumbles, sure it was him, sure she’s never put a hand out of place—not on him, not now, not tonight, not ever. _Chosen._ Chosen Captain, whose idly-strewn papers would be worth catching a glimpse of if he could concentrate. His sleeve mops along the desk, shoving away glass and paper and a cockeyed sextant that’s not seeing any straighter than he is.

She laughs into his mouth as he clears all of an inch of soaked wood, tongue and teeth and the warmth of her body where it aligns against his. When she pulls back, her eyes are bright and avid, and her body is still close enough to heat the room, to heat him breathless through his clothes.

“Aren’t you good,” she murmurs.

Her fingertips trail, fearless, into the glass shards, then rise to the curve of his cheek. Those clever eyes and steady hands trace over his face as if reading a map, over the scar—he closes his eyes, lets her read what she will, catches his breath when her lips follow her fingers, tongue flicking teasing and sharp against wine-baptized scars. Her teeth, playful or warning, on the edge of his cheek, then following her thumb to the soft hollow beneath his jaw. _Oh,_ he thinks, doesn’t have to say, _hells,_ makes a sound—or it makes itself, with little of his say-so—that gladly communicates the sentiment.

When she slides one damp fingertip into his mouth, then two, his mouth is willing for her, open with half a curse in the curve of his tongue. The full length of both fingers, then, and he isn’t thinking, only tasting—wine and clean sea-salt and the remainder of the lies on his own tongue. Like this he can’t speak and it’s a blessing, though a curse is thick in his throat and he moans into the hollow of her palm as her fingers sink deep into his mouth and her hips wind tight against his. The heel of her boot catches against the desk as she wraps a thigh high along the edge of his hip. He can feel the heat coming off her, feels as if he knows already what it’s like to fuck her, what it’s like to be fucked by her. Both are—he chokes a cry into her hand and she kisses the soft underjaw again with approval—to be at her mercy. She hums into his skin and her hand slips from his mouth, down his throat.

It is like nothing else—nothing else he has known, in his paltry experience, which looks more and more paltry by the second. He only knows he wants more in the moment, that there is no such thing as enough— _reward,_ he hears in a familiar low purr, through his veins, in the back of his skull, as her fingers scrape through his hair. He closes his eyes, moving into her hand and against her hips, pulling her closer in and this time there’s no wine-glass in his way as he lifts her up, the muscles of her thighs strong in his hand. The heat unwinding in his belly him is familiar, too, serpentine as it uncoils.

_Consume._

His eyes snap open, unsure if it is memory or—or, _please, not now,_ as she laughs and kisses him again. “You make wonderful faces,” she says, eyes still bright, still delighted. “I rather thought you might. I so wanted you to give yourself away.”

A reminder that it’s easiest to hide when he’s not speaking. He pulls her back in, too close for her to look at him, another word-swallowing kiss preventing him from having to lie. He’s a good liar, that he’s pretty sure of, that she should have a less uncanny read on the things he says. Keep her from listening, then. His mouth slips to the curve of her neck, skin soft against the scraped half-growth of his tusks, thrilling against the scar tissue, and, alright, the sound she makes convinces him he’s got her mind on other things.

He reaches down for her scarf and she laughs, _eager, hmm?_ sliding her hips up, _fuck_ , as she tugs it loose. His gaze tracks down to the third eye, the one he can see, between the lush rise of her breasts. It looks, of course it does. His skin prickles, mouth dry, but it might as well just be desire, _hells_ if she doesn’t move or doesn’t do something else he’ll be done for.

“Avantika,” he starts, and her fingers are on his lip.

“Captain,” she reminds.

“Captain,” he agrees, and _shit,_ the smile she gives him goes through him like a clean-thrown blade.

And he doesn’t miss the wash of relief, either, that courses through him at being able to cede the title for the night. She isn’t demanding leadership, mastery—far from it. She is, as he’s learned already, plenty willing to give orders.

The captain’s bed is behind a door not steps away, but when he moves, her hand balls into a fist against the back of his hair and tugs back on the nape, nails scratching against the close-shorn edges along his skull. H e leans back and finds it all too easy to pull her up against him, to arch into her grip as it yanks into his hair until he’s near flat on the desk. She doesn’t seem too concerned about her papers when his elbow sends them scattering. Again, he thinks,  _learn_ , hears it in a voice that’s not altogether his own.

Out of the corner of his eye, he catches a smeared  _due west_ scribbled into the margin of a map and what might be an inked ouroboros or might just be a very smudged O.  _Oh,_ he lies back and lets her settle herself against his lap, the weight of her a shifting agony, and then his vision is busy with the sight of her: settling herself atop him and unbuttoning, shucking her coat from her shoulders with a shrug and setting to work on him. Her hand on the buttons of his trousers, one fingertip weaving between them along the surface, tracing the rise beneath. He’s not going anywhere.

The sigh when she sets him free is all relief. “Hells,” he says with what breath he can manage, “thought you might’ve let me embarrass myself for a second,” and the grin never far from her teeth sharpens her face again.

“We are partners,” she says, leaning in again. “What benefits you benefits me.” And she grips like she means it and for a second he thinks he’s going to embarrass himself anyway, fingers clenching desperately into her thigh. She taps her other hand on the flat surface of his chest, above the unlaced collar of his shirt, like a second heartbeat on the surface, then slides it up.

She teaches him patience, mercilessly, a hand on his cock and a hand at his throat until the edges of his vision go— _mercy, Captain_ —bright. For a moment he sees lights; for a moment, in those lights, a thousand eyes in the dark. And when he opens his, he grabs her at the waist again and, damn them both, that’s enough of that, that’s at the very least enough of these clothes, he doesn’t do things by halves.

“No,” she says, voice rattled and bright as if he had her by the throat just as tight, “you don’t seem to.”

You won’t embarrass yourself, she promises—then, _Tusktooth,_ lilting, _take off those trousers before you spoil them._ The false name has its own powerful grip on him, the lie in her mouth deliberate and taunting. He can’t tell when— _if_ —he’s managed to lie to her successfully so far, only that every flick of her tongue and touch of her skin has him threatening to call out in his own voice.

But she hasn’t earned that yet, as much as she’s earned every half-formed sound that’s made its way out of him this evening. Not his voice, not his name, not the things he’s sworn away. Something much bigger than either of them thinks it’s a good idea for him to get what he wants, for a little while anyway, and for now what he wants is to shut his damn mouth and maybe hers along with it.

Although, she certainly has plenty to say, plenty of promises to offer. Like: _You won’t embarrass yourself_ , she says, fingers sliding between her legs as she crests against him. Like: _I won’t let you_.

He watches her for a round, listens like he’s going to be asked to repeat every hitch and cry back to her, and it’s good like that, though it so far from settles him in his skin, until she takes him by the wrist, lacing her fingers through his for a second. He feels nothing in her palm but healing skin, new-forming scarred edges, but he isn’t looking, then. Except at her face, until she slides his fingers into her sea-soaking center and closes her eyes.

“Gods,” he says, and she corrects, breathless, “ _Uk’otoa._ ”

He coughs back a laugh that’s a gasp that doesn’t stop him from stroking deeper into her. Of course she divvies out her terms of worship, even here, even like this. _Thanks for the reminder,_ he wants to say, and means the thanks; he needs something to hold him in place other than the threat of drowning on land as he watches her work herself off against his hand. His fingers curl into her, concentrating, thumb at the crux, her hips cresting against the wave. Maybe he can’t control the seas yet, but he can make do with this.

It’s—hells—an endurance test, but it’s a test of more than that. He can learn quick; he can hold his breath, even as she kisses like she would draw it back out of him. He knows about drowning at this point, knows that feeling better than anything, better than—this, certainly. When her fingers slide back into his mouth, it is thoughts of shipwreck that keep him from losing control. Salt on his tongue as her nails rake down his chest, digging into the edge of muscle and bone before they slip down.

She takes her time, makes him feel it, and damned if he doesn’t—feel it, feel it so completely that when her fingers wrap around his shaft and, _fuck_ , her thumb slides back, and she’s smiling and her skin is soft where it’s not scarred, he doesn’t know _where_ he’s feeling it, the bite of pain or the rise of pleasure, full, flushed, taunted, overpowered.

“You surrender wonderfully,” she murmurs. “Perhaps that’s what it is that puts you ahead of me. I never had much gift for giving in.”

Swallowing, remembering words, remembering the voice to put them in, he manages, “You give plenty,” and makes her laugh before she guides him into her, before that laugh cuts off into a gasp and he thinks of the sudden, possessed urge of being underwater, of pulling her back as she kicked ahead, of wondering if he could.

Knowing the other option is this: her atop him, not thinking about anything he might be hiding, sure she has him at his most vulnerable. She shudders around him, warm and tight, sliding back and curls an arm beneath his thigh to pull herself in close and sure, that free and grasping hand pressing a finger inside—eyes shut tight,a torrent of curses muddle their way out of him, many-tongued, damn near impossible to keep the inflections straight when she has him laid out like this beneath her.

In the candlelit glow of the room, the light turns her brown skin to gold, near yellow where it’s brightest. The hollow of her throat, the red twists of her hair. She arches with a gasp, body wrung tight with pleasure and wide open, until he can’t see her face. Only the curve of her breasts and the rock-hard tips of her nipples, the curve of her belly shadowing like an open mouth below.

For a moment the light flares and he swears he sees something, twin eyes, blink down at him.

It’s hardly him who cries out, half terror and half abandon. He can’t claim to be thinking, not then, of self-preservation, or even of reward. For a moment he can hear the roar of water outside the ship, can look over her shoulder to see the waves rocking black and heartless against the round-eyed window of her cabin.

He hears her laughing, echoing in the hollows of the room and against the lap of the waves. Or he thinks it’s her, is only sure when the laugh catches into a sigh. Then he is staring only at the pleasure-flung arch of her body and there’s nothing but flesh in the room, nothing but warm skin beneath his hands when he slides them up.

Her hand shifts and it is a relief to go under. For a moment, the wave takes him completely, the world black as he comes apart into so much seawater and driftwood.

When he opens his eyes after what might be a second and might be a year, she is sitting lazily back against his crooked-up leg, elbow flung out against his knee. When she looks down, her smile is wide and might be mistaken for unguarded, her face flushed rosy brown in the candlelight. “Well,” she says. “That was a success, I think.”

Her eyes catch gold in the light, even her tattoo gazing down. It doesn’t blink. His eyes fall to her breasts—she catches his eye on down, traces the edge of a nipple with a fingertip and a laugh, and nothing happens that’s not supposed to, unless his twitching back to half-alertness is a mistake. It might be. He bites his tongue, runs it over the serrated edge of his teeth like he can’t still taste her.

“I understand why so great an entity would choose you,” she says softly, and for a moment, he has a sense of true abjection he hasn’t felt since the thing— _Uk’otoa_ , he hears in the back of his mind, in her own refracted whisper—washed him ashore. “Why a forgotten god might want to see you kneel in its service.”

A shard of ground glass digs into his neck. He reaches back to yank it out. “Who said anything about gods?” he says.

The guard returns to her smile, sharpening its edges. “Do you not feel like a god at the end of a good night?” She flicks her fingers and the wine on the table curls with a will of its own toward her, snaking serpentine and red up her fingertips and leaving the desk clean. “I’ll have to do better next time.”

_Next time._ The crook in her eyebrow is not quite a question. “We will see more of each other,” she says softly, and for a moment, he feels as though he has consumed another blade. His chest catches, sharp, the sea-taste in his mouth near indiscernible from blood. “Get some rest, Captain.”

Gods be damned, she hasn’t seen him kneel yet. But he can’t promise that she won’t.


End file.
